Artwork by BZTAT
August and September were such busy months for me, I have hardly had a chance to keep up with it all!
From the Animal Instincts show, the Art of Kindness Paint-a-thon, working on a major commission for the Stark County Goodwill Community Campus (stay tuned–more to come about this), and developing the “Downtown Cats” mural project, I have been in a painting frenzy.
And that doesn’t even include the pet portraits that I have been creating! It’s all good, because it is all what I love to do.
I completed the above portrait a few weeks ago but never got a chance to write about it here, so I thought I would go back.
This was a very special portrait for a friend who lost his beloved dog Boomer in May of this year.
Boomer was an American Eskimo Spitz who brought great joy to my friend’s life for 13 years. My friend asked me to do a portrait of Boomer to remind him of all their great memories and adventures.
I started
by abstracting an actual photograph of Boomer in his younger days using Photoshop filters to get a reference design for the painting. The reference design was then traced onto a canvas using an overhead projector.
I began as I always do, by painting the background black and blocking in colors for the basic shapes. I use a process of building up color by painting many layers of varied colors on top of each other, always leaving some trace of the underneath layers.
Boomer’s daddy was very happy with it as well.
